News and Analysis

Adtech Firms Test New Concept with Autonomous Bot Delivery Campaign

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While food delivery platforms like Postmates, DoorDash, and GrubHub have all launched no-contact options, they generally rely on human drivers leaving food on the ground outside people’s front doors. With the health risks and potential for mix-ups, it’s less than ideal.

A better solution might be the one being rolled out by Wrapify. Just this morning, the company announched the launch of a first-of-its-kind campaign that could take autonomous bot delivery to the next level.

Street Fight’s December Theme: Leaving 2020

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What will the “next normal” look like in the post-Covid era of local commerce? Will things go back to the old normal or be a hybrid reality that cherry-picks components and new perspectives from the past nine months? Will e-commerce dip back down to pre-Covid levels or keep surging?

We’ll be answering these questions and others throughout the month, along with 2021 predictions (’tis the season) for our theme, Leaving 2020.

Qualifying and Quantifying 2020’s E-commerce Surge

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Spending hasn’t declined — it’s just shifted. One of the themes we’re seeing is that the standouts of 2020 are those who have shifted with it. We’re talking here about a broad definition of e-commerce — not just ordering things online, but any digital or mobile purchase.

For example, in local commerce, these digital fulfillment models include mobile order-ahead functions in QSR and coffee. They also include curbside pickup for physical goods. And in an even broader sense (and looking forward), they will include touchless or cashier-less retail in a post-Covid era of physical retail.

Commentary

LBMA Podcast: GetMiles, GrubHub & LevelUp, Jido Maps

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On This Week in Location Based Marketing: Jido Maps, the National Park Service, VR waterslide in Germany, GetMiles, Guess? + Alipay, GrubHub buys LevelUp.

Stronger Bklyner Helps Keep ‘News Desert’ at Bay in NYC’s Biggest Borough

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In this Q&A, Liena Zagare tells how Bklyner came back from the abyss this year and why, after flipping her business model to rely on her readers for revenue, she’s confident the digital pure-play she founded and edits will stay strong and help maintain Brooklyn as a news oasis.

If We Only Opened Facebook’s App for ‘Time Well Spent,’ Would We Use It Much At All?

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If Facebook’s advertisers’ most coveted users are opening its app mainly to scroll through News Feed while waiting for lattés or click on the stray cat video, and if the company truly wants time spent on its app to be “time well spent,” does its core mission even have a viable future?

Latest Posts

TownNews’s ‘iQ Engage’ Sorts Through Signals to Help Publishers Keep Users Reading

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TownNews.com has come up with a way for local publishers to cut their bounce rates — and the happy result is longer sessions and more click-throughs to advertising messages. That means more monetization for publishers and, ultimately, more users-turned-into-consumers buying products and services.

Street Fight Daily: Facebook at 10, Spotify Expands ‘Branded Moments’

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Marketers Still Struggle with Measurement, Attribution… Brands Can Now Target Spotify Playlists Ads Based on the Time of Day… Uber Confirms Ford Veteran Marakby is Leaving After One Year…

Frustration With Digital Marketing Vendors Boils Over for One SMB

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If it’s possible to distill the 30 million small business owners in the U.S. into a single persona, Marc Reisner strikes our columnists as a great candidate: “Marc has been disillusioned by past performance and that poor performance has understandably tarred the entire industry with the same brush.”

7 Ways That Brands Can Make Chatbot Conversations More Authentic

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Chatbots are transforming the customer experience and quickly moving into new sectors — but before marketers can expect conversation-mimicking software and artificial intelligence to replace live customer service representatives, they’ll need to find ways to overcome some consumer obstacles.

Street Fight Daily: Uber Opens Up On Finances, Walmart In Talks to Buy Bonobos

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber, Lifting Financial Veil, Says Sales Growth is Outpacing Losses… Walmart is in Advanced Talks to Acquire Online Men’s Retailer Bonobos… From ‘Zombie Malls’ to Bonobos: America’s Retail Transformation…

Street Culture: Why Telecommuting Makes Sense for Many Tech Startups

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“If you have the right team, the right employees, then they don’t have to be there physically,” says Kristen Stiles, co-founder and CEO of babysitter-finding app Sitter.me. “If you don’t trust your employees to work at home, you shouldn’t have hired them in the first place.”

How Brands Can Find the ‘Advertisable Moments’ They’re Missing

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Advertisable moments exist in a range of digital and physical contexts beyond TV sets and even beyond desktop browsers — and if a brand wants to capitalize on all available moments (especially those proverbial micro-moments) it has to look for ad opportunities in unexpected places.

Street Fight Daily: Google Uses Image Search for Retail, Instagram’s Snap Clone Surpasses Snap in Users

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google is Trying to Turn Image Search into a Shopping Tool… Instagram’s Snapchat Clone is Now More Popular than Snapchat… The Weather Company Opens Its Data Trove to Marketers on Outside Platforms…

Yext Shares Up Sharply in Initial Day of Trading, Portending Well for Local

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Yext’s shares jumped nearly 22% in the company’s initial day of trading, with the price rising as high as $14.25 per share before settling to $13.41 at close. The strong opening was a hopeful message from Wall Street for the local marketing industry, which has been looking to Yext’s IPO as a bellwether.

Are We on the Brink of a Retail Revolution?

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Revolutions often happen over short periods of time and leave death and carnage in their wake. What we are experiencing today in retail is more of an evolution — a sort of “survival of the fittest” as both local and big brand retailers either embrace shifting consumer shopping patterns or face extinction.